Summary

A man once came to live in Tangiers and met with an early death. This was a relatively common occurrence, and local society sat back to watch the man suffer, convinced that he had brought it upon himself.

The man's name was Duncan Marsh, and he was from Vancouver, British Columbia. The man telling the story (whom we will refer to as "the narratornarrator") never met Marsh, but heard about him and his fatal circumstances at cocktail parties.

Marsh rented an inexpensive, furnished house just outside of town and hired a teenage boy to act as a night watchman. The house came with a cook and a gardener, but Marsh replaced these two with a new cook who had been suggested by the night watchman.

Soon after the new cook came to work for him, Marsh became ill. The doctors sent...